AdWeek: Broadcasters Beware, Media Buyers Warn

The annual dance has already started, where agency television network buyers complain about the unreasonableness of network TV prices, falling ratings, ludicrous network claims. This annual phase leads up to the multi-billion-dollar television upfront season - due to start in about four months - where the agencies then roll over and decide to pay whatever price increases the networks want.

Because the media agencies participating in the upfront aren't capable of placing so many dollars in other media - at least not while maintaining internal cost efficiencies - their threats to seek more efficient media are obvious bluffs. Network execs, however, are savvy enough to tell the trade press that they are concerned about this upcoming season. The smart ones will save the gloating until after the contracts are signed.

Because the infrastructures of many big ad agencies is mostly geared around television, they can be led by sales reps rather willingly down this low-efficiency path. At some point, clients will demand a different structure - and necessarily different agencies - but that crisis point is unlikely to surface this next season, further heightening the fall such a dramatic shift would bring to the mainstream agencies.

Meanwhile, media players in radio, Internet and print hope that such an event would benefit their budgets by making their smaller audiences appear as efficient to buy as non-network forms of television, such as cable and syndication.